Re: [PATCH 0/2] Use %as and %cs as pretty format flags

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 06:09:37AM -0500, Nathan Panike wrote:
>
>> The patch series below allows git to use %as and %cs as flags for
>> pretty-printing the format of a date.
>
> Your description leaves a little to be desired (here and in the patches
> themselves). I had to read the patch to figure out that these are
> formatting specifiers for the date format "short".
>
> That being said, I think this is probably reasonable just for the sake
> of completeness (and I doubt we are wasting a useful formatting combo,
> since %a* is likely to remain dedicated to author information). I wonder
> if there should be "%al" for "local".
>
> However, it makes me wonder even more if '%ad' should simply respect the
> --date= parameter (this wouldn't allow you to mix and match dates in a
> single format, but I don't think that is what is desired). Or whether we
> should have some syntax for "%ad(short)" or something, where the
> argument would be handed off to the date format parser. But that is
> probably overengineering.

I was actually thinking about rejecting this, asking for something that
allows to express all the other %[ai][dDri] format can express, and
perhaps more.  So I think "%ad(short)" is a good direction to go, except
that 'd' is already taken.  Perhaps %a(date), %a(shortdate,local),...?

Oh, and before anybody asks, even if we do %a(specifier), you can keep
writing "%ad" if you are used to it.  I am not talking about deprecating
the existing ones, but making future extensions easier without forcing
people to remember cryptic one-letter format specifiers.